Dino rose to his feet. "It is impossible," he said, with an indignant flash of his dark eyes, which startled Hugo; "Brian would never be so base."
"My only wonder is," murmured Hugo, reflectively, "that Brian should be so clever."
"You call it clever?" said Dino, still more indignantly. "You call it clever to deceive a woman, to marry her for her money, to mislead her about one's name? Are these your English fashions? Is it clever to break your word, to throw away the love and the help that is offered you, to show yourself selfish, and designing, and false? This is what you tell me about the man whom you call your cousin, and then you ask me to admire his behaviour? Oh, no, I do not admire it. I call it mean, and base, and vile. And that is why he would not come to see me himself; that is why he sent you as an emissary. He could not look me in the face and tell me the things that you have told me!"
He sat down again. The fire died out of his eyes, the hectic colour from his cheek. "But I do not believe it!" he said, more sorrowfully than angrily; and in a much lower voice; "I do not believe that he means to do this thing. He was always good and always true."
Hugo watched him, and spoke after a little pause. "You had his letter," he said. "He told you to believe what I said to you. I could explain his views."
"Ah, but look you, perhaps you do not understand," said Dino, turning towards him with renewed vivacity. "It is a hard position, this of mine. Ever since I was a little child, it was hinted to me that I had English parents, that I did not belong to the Vasari family. When I grew older, the whole story of Vincenza's change of the children was told to me, and I used to think of the Italian boy who had taken my place, and wonder whether he would be sorry to exchange it for mine. I was not sorry; I loved my own life in the monastery. I wanted to be a priest. But I thought of the boy who bore my name; I wove fancies about him night and day; I wished with all my heart to see him. I used to think that the day would come when I should say to him—'Let us know each other; let us keep our secret, but love each other nevertheless. You can be Brian Luttrell, and I will be Dino Vasari, as long as the world lasts. We will not change. But we will be friends.'"
His voice grew husky; he leaned his head upon his hands for a few moments, and did not speak. Hugo still watched him curiously. He was interested in the revelation of a nature so different from his own; interested, but contemptuous of it, too.
"I could dream in this way," said Dino at last, "so long as no land—no money—was concerned. While Brian Luttrell was the second son the exchange of children was, after all, of very little consequence. When Richard Luttrell died, the position of things was changed. If he had lived, you would never have heard of Vincenza Vasari's dishonesty. The priests knew that there would be little to be gained by it. But when he died my life became a burden to me, because they were always saying—'Go and claim your inheritance. Go to Scotland and dispossess the man who lords it over your lands, and spends your revenues. Take your rights.'"
"And then you met Brian?" said Hugo, as the narrator paused again.
"I met him and I loved him. I was sorry for his unhappiness. He learnt the story that I had known for so many years, and it galled him. He refused to see the man who really ought to have borne his name. He knew me well enough, but he never suspected that I was Mr. Luttrell's son. We parted at San Stefano with friendly words; he did not suspect that I was leaving the place because I could not bear to see him day by day brooding over his grief, and never tell him that I did not wish to take his place."